Consider Christianity Week: Nancy Petrey – My Testimony

I will be continuing to post author testimonies through Holy Week and possibly beyond in commemoration of Consider Christianity Week, which actually ended yesterday. Nonetheless, this material is relevant any time.

I grew up in the Methodist Church and was very active. My grandparents gave me a Bible with my name engraved on it when I was 12 years old. I began reading the Bible then, fighting an inferiority complex. After marrying my high school sweetheart, we continued our regular church attendance even in college. As young adults we were youth counselors. We led moral lives, had nice friends, brought up our children in church, but still didn’t know Jesus as our personal Savior.

My husband Curtis was Chairman of Evangelism in our Methodist church in Tupelo, and he organized a Lay Witness Mission in March of 1968. “They need it,” he said. That weekend a variety of witnesses from all walks of life came at their own expense to share their testimonies about how Jesus had changed their lives.

I was 28 years old, singing in the choir, and teaching Sunday School, but I didn’t truly understand God’s plan of salvation until I heard all the witnesses and listened to the final message. The verse that grabbed my heart was John 14:6 – “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” At the invitation Curtis and I both came forward to kneel and give our lives completely to the Lord. When we got up from the altar, our personal relationship with Jesus as Lord and Savior began, and our lives were totally changed. Every day was filled with purpose and meaning as the Holy Spirit directed our lives.

On January 1, 1976, Curtis surrendered to God’s call into full time ministry, and God called me the same day. We continued to grow and were filled with the Spirit for ministry. On August 18, 1995, God called me to be a Mizpah (watchman and witness) for Israel. Following that call has taken me to Israel eight times, and I have written four books.

I pray that God will be glorified in my life as a mother, grandmother (I am now a widow), musician, author, Bible teacher, and speaker. God gave me a song for my call, “Messenger Girl for Messiah Yeshua!”